The Imo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has charged the chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, to declare their member, Modestus Osakwe, winner of Isu state constituency election.
The publicity secretary of PDP in the state, Collins Opurozor, made the call during a press briefing at the party secretariat in Owerri yesterday.
He called for a painstaking investigation into the activities of INEC personnel in Imo and their roles in the widespread electoral fraud that defiled the 2023 elections at all levels in the State.
Further, the party reiterated their call on the Inspector General of Police to investigate and sieve out the corrupt personnel at the Imo state Police command, who had “become willing tools for the enforcement of electoral crimes and implementation of sundry other dictatorial and fascist political agenda of the Senator Hope Uzodinma-led APC regime in the state”.
According to Opurozor, Osakwe polled 5,551 and won in six electoral wards to defeat the APC candidate who scored 4,954, saying a visit to the iREV will confirm it.
He maintained that of the 123 polling units in Isu council, 122 results have been successfully uploaded on the IREV, representing 99.19% of the total results saying the only result which was not transmitted came from Ekwe Ward 1, Booth 16, where APC thugs had made away with the BVAS, adding the result is ready and available at the INEC office, Owerri.
He disclosed that in four other polling units where elections were disrupted were because of “thugs because of the imminent loss of APC, the INEC Forms EC 40 G were duly signed by the POs, SPOs and the EO. In keeping with the provisions of the Electoral Act and the INEC Guidelines, the possibility of a rerun in those areas has been effectively foreclosed. This position has also been publicly affirmed by INEC. The total results from the eleven electoral wards in Isu LGA as now fully published on the INEC Result viewing Portal show that the PDP candidate, Hon. Modestus Abazie Osakwe won”.
Opurozor said it was wrong for INEC to withhold the declaration of Osakwe as winner saying “It becomes totally unacceptable that INEC in Imo State has refused to announce the result and declare our candidate winner of the election. Instead, top officials of the commission have chosen to yield to the whims and caprices of the APC regime in the state to sit on the victory of our party in the bid to devise ways to finally upturn it”.
He called on INEC chairman, Prof Yakubu to immediately declare Isu state constituency election saying “Our party, therefore, calls on the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to order the immediate declaration of the result for Isu state constituency election in Imo state which was won by the PDP”.
“It is also necessary to inform Nigerians that both the INEC Returning Officer and some other officials involved in the Isu state constituency election have severally been invited, harassed and intimidated by the police with a view to making them upturn the result in favour of the failed APC. This is how regrettably partisan the police has become”, he lamented.
“What we have found further disturbing is that those same actors in the electoral fraud have remained unrepentant, unfazed and determined to truncate democracy and plunge Imo State into anarchy.
State Youth Leader, Greg Nwadike complained about the killing of youths dumped in borough pits especially within Orlu zone and called on the state government to allow free and credible polls during the governorship election scheduled for November.
He called on security agencies including the disbanded Ebube-Agu security outfit to stop harassment of Imo people.
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